I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

5/09/2012 @ 2:23PM86,474 views

Scott Walker Using $100 Million Of Taxpayer Money To Fight Off Recall?

As Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker heads into the final stretch in his effort to hang onto his job, he is finding it increasingly more difficult to make his case honestly— or without using huge sums of taxpayer money to sway voters.

While life would likely have been easier for the Governor had collective bargaining remained the key issue of the campaign, now that the election has become largely about Walker’s record on job creation, the polls reveal that things are becoming increasingly more difficult for Scott Walker. Wisconsin currently competes with Nevada for the dubious title of worst job creator in the nation, resulting in the polls tightening into a dead heat, leaving the Governor with reason to be worried.

In the effort to move withering public opinion in his direction, the Governor has embarked on a campaign strategy highly dependent upon finding someone else to blame for the poor economic performance of his state. In the process, Walker has resorted to committing a huge amount of taxpayer money to aid in his political survival, while mounting a campaign that—to anyone paying attention—only serves to highlight his own failures over the past decade.

Not surprisingly, the ‘someone’ chosen by Walker to play the role of scapegoat is his recall election opponent, Mayor Tom Barrett of city of Milwaukee—a city with some of the most difficult poverty problems in the nation.

The effort kicked off ten days ago when, after fifteen months in the Governor’s chair where Walker has consistently cried poverty in the state budget as the rational for his many controversial moves, the Governor miraculously came up with $100 million to fund economic development in Milwaukee’s poorest areas—money Walker claims will come from the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Board.

Even more surprising is the astonishing resemblance between the Walker scheme and the series of measures put forth by President Obama as the Governor’s proposal involves reoccupying foreclosed and vacant properties while making loans and venture capital money available to small businesses and industrial developers.

Of course, Scott Walker had been a vocal opponent of such proposals when uttered by the President.

In noting the transparent effort, commentator Bob Cesca points out that some of the money will also go toward revitalizing the area’s transportation industry which, as Cesca notes, is “particularly amusing, as it was Governor Walker who led the charge to reject federal stimulus funds allocated for the state to revitalize transportation. Funds which the state of Wisconsin would later have to cover themselves absent the federal grant.”

The irony of it all did not go unnoticed by Mayor Barrett who, while no doubt appreciative of any help offered to his city, noted-

I question the sincerity of that when it comes 36 days before the recall election. Had this come during his time as county executive, had this come during the first 15 months of his term as governor, I may have felt he was more sincere. But the timing, one week basically after the state of Wisconsin was identified as the only state in the entire country that had a statistically significant decrease in jobs, raises the question of whether this is about creating jobs in Milwaukee or this is about saving Scott Walker’s job.

While Barrett correctly points out the utter cynicism apparent in Walker’s move, voters living in other parts of the state might have cause to wonder about the Governor’s motivations as it is their tax dollars being utilized to further the governor’s political struggle at a time when Wisconsin teachers are being laid off in droves, state heath care programs have been decimated and severe job shortages exist in many areas extending beyond Milwaukee. While Wisconsinites are, no doubt, pleased to see some relief headed in Milwaukee’s direction, the folks in Janesville, who have suffered greatly on the jobs front these past few years, might be scratching their heads as they wonder why there is no state economic aid coming their way and how so large a sum of cash suddenly materialized.

There are those who do not believe the Governor’s offer of aid to Wisconsin will ever materialize.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

sigh..now it’s getting boring. I don’t think being ‘proud’ is the issue,now is it? Get out the vote drives involve picking up people to get them to the polls, etc. Nobody had to go to the polls to sign a petition,now did they? If we are going by total turn out yesterday, I’m afraid there were more votes cast for Dems. than Walker. Not sure where the magic is in picking the top two candidates except that Rush Limbaugh tried to make a fuss about it. None of it matters anyway. June 5h matters. now, it is the tradition here to give commenters the last word, so you are welcome to dazzle us with some more of whatever it is you feel you are contributing. But I think you’ve gotten enough attention from me.

Dude. Are you on crack? Did you even see the results? I live in Wisconsin (and doubt you actually do) as Walker got nearly as many votes as both democrat candidates combined. Leave it to another liberal to be blind by liberal hype.

Sorry guy, but if Wisconsin falls for this ruse the unions are in the process of trying to pull off, then yes, they are VERY DUMB!! Do you people think it’s just a coincidence that everywhere with heavy union representation has accumulated major debt and loses jobs as quickly as Solyndra wasted our tax dollars? I live in Pittsburgh and have seen how unions destroy everything they touch first hand- if you don’t believe me, take a drive up to Detroit to see Wisconsin’s future. If you live in Wisconsin, you better hope and pray Walker wins.

Agreed – June 5 is what matters. I’ve heard several times now from people who didn’t vote in the primary because they didn’t have strong feelings about which of the Democratic candidates they preferred — but they felt plenty strongly that they’d vote for whichever Democrat against Walker in June. The primary and the general are very different scenarios here.